What was Baphomet? (updated)

Called many things by many people, we still have no definitive concept of the Templars' Baphomet. According to their  accusers and some occultists, the horned goat's head of the winged, sacred hermaphrodite (the Goat of Mendes), worshiped by the Knights Templar in their secret lodges along with myriad other Luciferian rites was known as Baphomet. According to Manly P. Hall, 33rd degree, in The Secret Teachings of All Ages:

The practice of magic -- either white or black -- depends upon the ability of the adept to control the universal life force -- that which Eliphas Levi calls the great magical agent or the astral light. By the manipulation of this fluidic essence the phenomena of transcendentalism are produced. The famous hermaphroditic Goat of Mendes was a composite creature formulated to symbolize this astral light. It is identical with Baphomet, the mystic pantheos of those disciples of ceremonial magic, the Templars, who probably obtained it from the Arabians. [1]

Jennifer Emick describes it as, "one of the most misunderstood religious symbols of all time." She provides the historical background:

The name Baphomet is derived from an enigmatic figure first described at the trials of the Templars, a medieval order of Crusader Monks accused of Heresy, witchcraft, and other crimes against the Catholic Church.

... King Phillip of France, possibly with an eye toward gaining control of Templar finances, issued secret orders to have all of the Templars in France arrested on grounds of heresy and sorcery. Torture elicited confessions of various crimes and heresies from many of the Knights. The laundry list of unlikely confessions included spitting on the cross, denying Christ, and worshipping an idol called Baphomet.

The Baphomet is still an enigma, and there is of course some debate whether or not it was a real item or the product of torture. Several knights recalled that Baphomet was variously a severed head, or an idol possessing two or four heads, or sometimes, as a goat or goat's head. The name is highly unusual, and many suggestions about the origin of the word have been put forward. Idries Shah has proposed that the name is a corruption of a name of Mohammed. Abufihamat, pronounced "Bufihimat," a word very similar to Baphomet, is Moorish-Spanish for "father of wisdom," an epithet used to describe the Prophet. This seems unlikely, although there seems to be a concerted effort to link the Templars with Islam. The Templars certainly had contact with Muslim ideas, and even incorporated symbols of Islam into their emblems, but Islam forbade Idol worship just as strenuously then as now- creating an image of the prophet in order to worship it would have been a tremendous blasphemy. [2]

There is another, more esoteric concept of Baphomet first encountered in the Weidner & Bridges book, The Mysteries of the Great Cross of Hendaye: Alchemy and the End of Time. The proposal made here is that the Templars were not worshipping any goats head, but rather it was recognized at the time as a sort of head -- an astrolabe. This explanation, while certainly less publicized, or sensational, makes much more sense. Considering the Templars' pursuit of hermetic knowledge, an astrolabe to track the heavens, perform astrology and prophecy, and meditate upon would fit in quite well with potential Alchemical operations.

The astrolabe is a model of the heavens. Based upon the assumption that the Earth is at the centre of a spherical universe, the ... astrolabe reproduces ... the positions of the Sun and of some of the major stars, as seen by an imaginary observer, outside the sphere looking upwards, at a particular time in a particular latitude.

Because the astrolabe can be set to show the poitions of these heavenly bodies at different times of day or night, on different dates and for different latitudes, the instrument is also a computer, serving to solve problems concerning the position of Sun and stars at any given time. It will therefore resolve problems which depend upon these movements, such as the length of day or night at any specifed time. [3]

[Some astronomical uses for this device would have included:] measuring the altitude of the Sun, measuring the altitude of a star, setting the astrolabe from the Sun, setting the astrolabe from the altitude of a star, finding the time in equal hours, and finding the unequal hour by day, finding the unequal hour by night, finding the times of sunrise and sunset, finding the time of rising or setting of a given star, converting equal hours to unequal hours, setting the astrolabe for a given time and date, and using the shadow square [for purposes of surveying or construction]. [4]

Using this information, the astrological and alchemical information that could be derived is plentiful. From The Mysteries of the Great Cross of Hendaye:

The most persistent story, first told in the thirteenth century, has Gerbert, while still archbishop of Rheims, constructing a magical bronze "head" that foretells the future. The "head," of course, announces that Gerbert will indeed be pope, which, considering his shaky position as archbishop, was a bold prediction. A similar story of a bronze head would be told about other medieval magicians, including Roger Bacon and Albertus Magnus. It also suggests, in an indirect way, the "head" the Templars were supposed to have worshiped, the mysterious Baphomet.

These similarities  are not accidents, but glimpses of the design behind the symbols. Richer, in his Histories, gives us the clue. In the sentence after he mentions Gerbert's hermetic accomplishments, we are told that Gerbert had also designed an armillary sphere [spherical astrolabe] with which he could determine the location of the sun and the planets in relation to the celestial sphere. Interestingly enough, the earth in this model was round, five hundred years before Columbus.

... In symbolic terms, this sphere of knowledge became the "head" possessed  by all famed students of the art in the Middle Ages.

The mysterious name of the Templar's "head," ... Baphomet, phonetically in Arabic, Aramaic, and Hebrew, is simply bet'amet, or "place of the truth." The root ba or bet is the same as the ba in Baal, and can signify a house, a place, or the action of filling space. The "place of truth" used as a title could well be meant to signify the space-filling "house" of the Cube of Space in the celestial sphere and the value of its prophetic insight. Over time, the simple phrase became a code word for the secret itself. The Templars did not worship their bronze head; they meditated on it and studied it closely for clues about the secret of time and timing of their alchemical operations. [5]

Update: We've received a photo of particular significance to this theory. Noted researcher and author of Living in the Matrix Another Way: Numerology for a New Day and his latest, In These Signs Conquer, Ellis C. Taylor (http://www.ellisctaylor.com/menu.html) sent in a photograph from Rosslyn Chapel, the Scottish home of the Templars, showing a spherical astrolabe! I didn't have any idea about this when writing the above article. It was only once Ellis contacted me that I learned of this astonishing circumstance that goes hand in hand with the evidence offered above to help substantiate the theory. Thank you Ellis!

1. Hall, Manly P. The Secret Teachings of All Ages, Readers' ed. (New York: Tarcher/Penguin, 2003). p. 316.

2. Emick, Jennifer. "Baphomet: Templars and the Origin of Baphomet." http://altreligion.about.com/library/weekly/aa030103a.htm

3. The Planispheric Astrolabe. (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, England). p. 8.

4. ibid. pp. 25 -31.

5. Weidner, Jay & Bridges, Vincent. The Mysteries of the Great Cross of Hendaye: Alchemy and the End of Time. (Rochester, VT: Destiny Books). pp. 130 - 132.